Photo Credit: Red Cross by DEMOSH. Caption: "Internally displaced people queue to register for the food rations being provided by the Kenya Red Cross in Nairobi" DEMOSH is a photojournalist working in East and Central Africa and based in Nairobi, Kenya. Check out his other photos.

7 comments:

Excellent resource round-up; here are a few more on Shaping Youth re: using social media to help orphans and vulnerable children in Kenya. http://www.shapingyouth.org/blog/?p=1021

The worknets wiki and pyramidofpeace is chock full of hands-on info on how you can help by putting credit on mobiles via the internet to keep communication channels open for updates. http://www.worknets.org/wiki.cgi?HelpKenyans

Several of our Women Leaders for the World delegates are smack dab in the middle of the mess, and keeping us apprised. In fact, Louise Sewe sent us this note 72 hours ago (she’s the director for WEGE/Kenya) “We've been praying day and nights, but things are not cooling down. There are some new eruptions but we hope the eminent Kofi Annan team will do something. We need your prayers and intercessions.”

Also, GraceUSA.org is no doubt funneling their energies into hotspots there as well…Keep me posted on any new leads you have as I’m posting to our WLW group everytime I hear of new routing/media feeds. Thanks, Britt, this is so very helpful. As always, "you rock!"

I love how you emphasize the importance of one individual in making a difference. I wanted to share with you the software that I have been working to promote over the past few months. In addition to a $25 donation today, an extra donation of $25 can be donated through echoDonations.org, which places your money in a charitable mutual fund to grow and earn interest throughout a lifetime. Every year, interest is earned on the donation, and it continues to grow until your passing away.

It's a neat concept, and a great way to build a foundation for the future, while at the same time helping those in need today.

I have a question that is really bothering me about all this. Every time you read about refugee camps and oppressed groups you find out that men in power are raping women...

Why? The people are already oppressed and herded together--how does all of this time spent raping moving their cause or their country ahead at all? They are expending their energy, spreading disease, etc. Shouldn't they be plowing a field or making money or something valuable??

It is horrifying-I couldn't imagine living in those circumstances. It also seems very non-strategic.

Hi Terri, I'm not an expert on this, but my understanding is that rape is being used as a weapon as part of ethnic cleansing. So, it isn't that people are in refugee camps and people are being raped by people in their tribe, although that happens too, it is that the tribes who are in conflict with each other are using rape as a weapon against each other.

As this article in the Telegraph.co.uk explains,"The vast majority of the victims had been assaulted in their own homes and all had been targeted because of their tribe, the doctors said.

Most were members of President Mwai Kibaki's Kikuyu tribe, attacked in Nairobi's slums by other ethnic groups who support Raila Odinga, his Luo challenger."